Eternally Ducked (I Don’t Know How to Flirt)

January 23, 2015

I’ve had many of my friends make offhand comments about the irony of me running a blog. Why? I’m a very private person who doesn’t share personal information very easily. I’m the queen of having long conversations where the person walks away and realizes I never revealed anything of importance. I don’t necessarily do it on purpose, I think I’ve always had this engrained thought that my life/thoughts are nothing out of the ordinary. I don’t want to bore people, so I don’t freely give unless asked. I’d much rather listen to somebody else. So yes, I do understand the irony of me blogging.

This hesitancy is why I’ve mainly stuck to music/travel/fashion posts. But, after reading a recent article about how many bloggers seem like these picture perfect people who aren’t relatable I’d thought I’d give a personal-ish post a shot. Here I am with my first attempt. We’ll see how it goes – you may never see one again, you may start to see them more often. Only time will tell.

I have a confession to make. I don’t know how to flirt to save my life. I never have.

The people who can bat their eyelashes and flirt heavily with anyone they meet as a part of their persona astound me. I become a shy, babbling idiot who’s idea of flirting is looking at the person and hoping they don’t make eye contact and when they do I quickly look away. I’m single with no idea how to mingle.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve dated plenty before, but it’s usually friends that have progressed to that stage where flirting wasn’t integral or the awkward blind date which is a whole other bag of fun. I am the human personification of Liz Lemon meets Seth Cohen in the awkwardness of flirting.

Here’s a story for proof. A few years ago I was determined to flirt with a guy I was into over Facebook. I wrote this sultry come on and balked before I could send it. I shut my computer and just said a big fat NOPE. To this day I say it was more for the fact I was currently his TA and less with my ability, but that may be a bit of a lie. Moral of the story? My roommate proceeded to open my computer and press send. I was mortified. It all ended happy, so I guess outlandish flirting isn’t all that bad if I could figure it out.

Not much has changed since that story. Which brings me to how I’m eternally ducked. There’s a regular customer who comes into the coffee shop where I work and I’ve been smitten with him since day one. The more I’ve gotten to know him, the more I’ve been left clueless on what to do as I realize he’s more than just eye candy and actually has qualities I want in a man. It took me weeks to even gain the courage to ask his name. Ridiculous. Slowly I got a little less shy and more talkative. Now, we’ve advanced to the stage where every time he comes in we chat for a few minutes on life and he always smiles and says goodbye before leaving. That’s some A+ progress to me. I’ll be sixty before I even find out if he’s single.

After a recent event I turned to my coworker and said “God! I’m so obvious.” They looked at me blinking for a few moments before asking “What was obvious?” Even though I feel like I’m waving a big I FIND YOU ATTRACTIVE flag and alerting everybody in the tri-state area, I guess it just seems like I’m being nice and I’m nice 99% of my life. Whomp. How do people flirt so easily? Do I really need to resort to the bend and snap? (Note: I will never resort to the bend and snap.)

After realizing yet again that I can’t flirt I meant to text my friend that I was ‘eternally fucked’ when it came to the art of flirting, but iPhone being the fun fest that it is decided any form of the f-word isn’t valid. DUCKED. That’s not even a word Siri. Stop trying to make ducked happen. Now it’s become a running joke of sorts amongst the coffee shop. Every time he comes in and I’m awkward and nice my coworkers will all turn to each other and say eternally ducked. I guess it’s my new catchphrase.

ETERNALLY DUCKED.

If you wanted to know, I can’t pick up on flirting either. It either flies completely above my head or I think they’re being nice. Go figure. Lucky for me I’m good at playing matchmaker for others somehow so that eases the burn just a bit.

Maybe one day I’ll be able to have the below celebration at a more frequent interval.

I hope you got your dose of daily amusement or felt a connection in mutual inability to flirt from this post.

Are you bad at flirting? Or is it a skill you excel at? (Teach me your ways.)

P.S. – I realized halfway through writing this post, I have written about life a time or two before when I wrote about Dealing with Disappointment.

Until next time,

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About Kati Rose

One day I woke up and decided I wanted to live a life surrounded by all the pleasures I love most. Music, travel, fashion, art, photography, entertainment, and more! Join my on my everyday adventures at Constantly Seeking Wonder!